The boys are back – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are finally back on our screens – albeit the small screen for now. Exclusive to Amazon Prime the US streaming service which soft-launched in Australia overnight.
To access the show, you simply need to go to Amazon.com (or .co.uk) and navigate through the awfully 90’s navigation and user interface to log-in to your account and head to the Amazon Prime Video section to sign up to a 30 day trial or get cracking for about $15 US per month.
Right from the get-go, it’s the show “After” Top Gear – Clarkson is seen leaving the BBC, heading to the garage and getting behind the wheel of a beefed-up Ford Mustang. On the open road he is joined by his mates Hammond and May.
They drive off into the desert to the scene of the first episode being filmed. On a rock-music stage they introduce themselves, before heading inside The Grand Tour tent which will travel with them around the world to each week’s filming location.
The chemistry of the trio is the first thing you’ll realise they have going for them over and above the rebooted Top Gear.
Titled “The Holy Trinity” the first “film” they show is their McLaren P1, Porsche 918 and La Ferrari comparison. Something they wanted desperately to do on Top Gear.
Production values are a level above even what was achieved by Top Gear with stunning graphics used when talking about the in-built technology of the three cars.
Then there’s the test track – the show has to have a way of benchmarking cars – for The Grand Tour they’ve found what appears to be an old airfield in rural UK and added some small turns to create a track that is quite small, very tight and surrounded by obstacles like trees, cars – and a surprise concern I’ll leave for you to find out.
Episode 1 is an hour and 9 minutes, and It’s time I don’t regret taking – Such a great production, such great natural humour and full stop fun from start to finish.
Clarkson may have done something remarkably stupid and needs to learn some personal self-control, but watching this the BBC will be regretting their decision not to power on through public scrutiny and let the Top Gear franchise live on.
As far as I’m concerned, Top Gear is dead, The Grand Tour heralds a new dawn in online streaming video. Sure House of Cards attracted viewers to Netflix, yep Stan has made it special for Australian’s and Aussie content, but if Amazon Prime can fix their complex sign-up process and make it an easy process for Aussies – they’ll smash unwritten and unpublished streaming records just with The Grand Tour. It doesn’t even matter what other great shows they have.
I’ll pay $15 a month just for The Grand Tour.
Oh, and watch it to the end to find out why Jeremy had this look on his face:)
